Badri Lal Chitrakar Bhilwarawala: The master art forger

It may be the most celebrated fake ever to hit the Indian art market. But when officials of the National Museum in New Delhi acquired it in 1976, the 30-page manuscript was promptly hailed as one of the great breakthroughs in ancient miniature painting - the purchase itself was considered a coup.

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Chander Uday Singh

October 16, 2013

ISSUE DATE: May 15, 1982

UPDATED: July 31, 2014 14:52 IST

Jaur Gita Govinda: A hot potato

It may be the most celebrated fake ever to hit the Indian art market. But when officials of the National Museum in New Delhi acquired it in 1976, the 30-page manuscript was promptly hailed as one of the great breakthroughs in ancient miniature painting - the purchase itself was considered a coup.

In the next five years Indian art scholars delved deep into the manuscript's chronology and history - it was dated 1593, the verses in ancient Devanagari script appeared to be a variation on the popular Gita-Govinda theme, the language an intermingling of Gujarati and Mewari, the fading miniature paintings a slight deviation from the sixteenth century Chaurapanchasika group, and the source of the manuscript was ascribed to a tiny village called Jaur near Udaipur.

By January 1982, the National Museum had published a critical monograph on the "Jaur Gita-Govinda". Wrote Dr Kapila Vatsyayan, art historian, dancer, and deputy director of cultural affairs in the Ministry of Education, who authored the book: "The Jaur Gita-Govinda raises many important questions of the development of languages and dialects and the evolution of miniature painting styles during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. (It is) an important piece of evidence for a reassessment of the evolution of early Rajasthani painting." Leading experts on ancient art, including Dr B.N. Goswamy of the Chandigarh Museum, Dr Anand Krishna, and B.M. Jawalia, a scriptologist, confirmed that the manuscript was almost 400 years old.

Badri Lal Chitrakar: Master forger at work

Last fortnight nobody was quite so sure any more. After a young art scholar demolished the manuscript's claims to antiquity, by exposing it as a brilliantly executed fake by a master forger, Badri Lal Chitrakar Bhilwarawala at a seminar on art history at Ahmedabad last January, the Jaur Gita-Govinda suddenly became the hottest potato in the Rational Museum collection.

The pudgy, bespectacled, dhoti-clad artist was paraded before the assembled historians and he explained detail his painting techniques, colour-making of ancient parchment and scrolls, and the intricate ageing process be used to fool the experts. "Even before selling the painting," he confirmed last fortnight in his cramped atelier in Bhilwara, "I had shown it in a slightly incomplete form to Dr Sreedhar Andhare of the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay and Dr Pramod Chandra, who teaches at Harvard, and told them that it was my work. I sold it to a Surat dealer in February 1975, but God knows how many hands it passed through before reaching the National Museum."

Authentic: It was clear last fortnight that the country's leading art historians were running scared on the issue of the Jaur Gita-Govinda. Soon after the Ahmedabad disclosures virtually every expert connected with its purchase and initial authentication was called to Delhi to reassess the yellowing folios. The verdict, according to Vatsyayan, was whole-hearted approval of the manuscript: "The Jaur Gita-Govinda was examined again after these rumours got around Badri Lal may have made other fakes but certainly not the Jaur Gita-Govinda and it is too bad that serious scholars take (his claims) seriously."

Although, in the exclusive society of art collectors and museums, news of fraud and deception rarely filters to the world outside, it is apparent that brilliant compositions by the master-craftsman are not uncommon in collections around the world.

A Badri Lal forgery: Vast knowledge of ancient paintings and mastery of techniques

Early in 1973 a Badri miniature of the seasons found its way to the Los Angeles Country Museum. Dr Pratapaditya Pal, curator of the museum, wrote a research document on the painting, dating it 1450 A.D. The Shatritu Varnan, or story of six seasons, was treated as a breakthrough for the pre-Akbari period, till Indian art scholars familiar with the Badri Lal style of painting disillusioned its owners.

Nearly Perfect: Examples of Lal's work pop up even more frequently in private collections. Saryu Doshi, a Bombay-based art historian, affirms that she first saw one in 1971, adding that the forgery was so meticulously made that it was almost impossible to tell that it was one. In Bhilwara, Lal's sons, painters themselves, confirm this.

"There is no 'expert' in the world who our father has not fooled," said Gyan Prakash; the second of his five sons. "His knowledge of ancient paintings is vast, and he is such a master-artist that he knows how to apply this knowledge and make paintings that seem even more genuine than the authentic ones themselves."

Delving deep into the history of miniature painting, the self-taught but technically illiterate artist discovered that the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries form the darkest period for historians - an era of relative ignorance and uncertainty between the better-known Jain period and the Mughal and Rajasthani schools which followed.

Capitalising on this fact, he has set his forgeries within the stylistic framework of this age. His paintings are never copies of existing works of art. Working out entirely original compositions on the basis of ancient manuscripts and verses which he comes across, he improvises, alters, and blends motifs of the period to achieve the effect he is looking for.

Explains Doshi: "It is this innovation of Badri's which succeeds in fooling the experts. Every expert who discovers a Badri Lal painting feels that he has stumbled onto something new and exciting, and thinks it is a breakthrough."

Technically it is difficult to fault a Badri Lal forgery. His paper is taken from old manuscripts dating as far back as the seventeenth century, and put through a complicated ageing process. Sometimes, he succeeds in laying his hands on ancient parchment which contains an incomplete manuscript - often with the spaces for the paintings left blank. It is not difficult for the master forger to fill in the blanks with an artfully conceived painting illustrating the verses, age the paintings to match them to the script, and pass off the entire manuscript as original.

Since the pigments used by Badri Lal are made from the same minerals and stones, and by the same techniques, as those used a thousand years ago, it is virtually impossible to detect his forgeries by dating the paints. Nine years ago his Shatritu Varnan was put through the paces with a string of complicated tests in the US including a crystal analysis test by top-ranking antiques-tester Ben Johnson. The result was an unqualified endorsement of the painting, which was then dated 1450 A.D.

Although modern paint-brushes from Bombay are used for the cheap miniatures supplied to wholesale dealers, Lal himself will use only a brush made from the tail-hairs of a live squirrel and the quill of a pigeon-feather. "I know more about colours, paper and the ancient painting techniques than all these so-called experts put together," boasted the master-craftsman, "I can make paints today which will last as long as the Ajanta frescoes have, locate the exact materials needed for a Basohli, Kangra, Kishangadh, Deogarh or Malwa painting, and identify the exact style which will fool any of them."

Aggrieved Artist: However, the 62-year-old Lal's eyesight is failing. Recognising that he can no longer paint the brilliant forgeries that were his staple in the past, the artist has trained three of his sons and three employed craftsmen to continue the art of miniature-making. While he continues to oversee the entire operation, he insists that the days of forging are behind him. Explaining why he became a forger he says: "I have spent my whole life in sadhana, learning the arts and techniques, but what do I have to show for it? How is it that a Husain sells for Rs 40,000 and nobody will give me even a thousand?"

Meanwhile in Delhi the controversy continues. The contradictions and inconsistencies, arising from what appeared to be a concerted attempt to cover up the fiasco, were piling up last fortnight. But the purchase of an occasional fake, given the high margins which can be earned by the enterprising forger, is an occupational hazard for any collector or institution.

Explained Haridas Swali, one of India's leading private collectors of ancient art and antiques: "Fakes land up in the collections of the greatest institutes and collectors in the world. The occasional discovery of a forgery in a museum collection only shows that the museum took risks and followed a pragmatic approach to acquisitions."

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